Danny Gallagher and Nate Gallardo first met while working for a London-based games startup in 2014. Their first collaboration was Prowl, a small-scale, single-location game about driving in the rain and listening to dark jazz. After adapting Prowl for the Oculus Rift, they moved focus to a new game, Trawl. Building on the concept of detailed, meaningful interaction in a small-scale, confined setting, Trawl attempted to encourage players to exercise their own creativity and find their own meaning in the experience, acting as a writing prompt for those so inclined. While Nate concentrated on other projects post-Trawl, Danny took the lead laying the foundations for their next project, code-named Dust Bowl.

Trawl

Trawl started as a discussion between Nate and Danny in the pub one evening after work in early 2014. The core concept was to provide the player with a randomised set of items that would act as inspiration for the player invest their own meaning in the experience, bringing their own interpretation to the unique collection of items. The key idea that tied the whole project together and gave it focus was the development of the in-game typewriter, transforming the project into a one of a kind writing-prompt.